Trillions of dollars of market value could go up in smoke due to climate change. The damage hits the global economy in multiple ways. The first is the most obvious. Physical damage from more powerful natural disasters is on the rise. 2017 and 2018 were the costliest back-to-back years for economic losses related to natural disasters, according to risk and reinsurance firm Aon. But the danger grows worse when the physical damage starts to reprice portions of entire asset classes. One glaring example is the real estate market along coastlines, which will see both physical damage and a dramatic repricing as the threat becomes increasingly clear. That happens through a variety of mechanisms – people move away, zoning ordinances restrict building, insurance companies withdraw support, investors withdraw capital, etc. If sea levels rise by 6 feet by 2100, an estimated $900 billion in U.S. homes “would be literally – […]